Senate contender Debbie Mucarsel-Powell on Monday slammed her opponent Rick Scott as a “fraud” and accused Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration of silencing Jewish beliefs just eight days ahead of the election for reddened Florida’s surprisingly tight race.
In her bid to upset the fabulously wealthy incumbent, Mucarsel-Powell, a Latina immigrant and former one-term Congresswoman from Miami, blasted Scott for his shifting abortion stance while speaking to supporters at a Tallahassee press conference for reproductive rights.
“Rick Scott has proudly endorsed [Florida’s] six-week ban,” she said, referring to comments made last year by the popular conservative, who has since said that he would support a 15-week ban over the DeSantis-backed “Heartbeat Protection Bill.”
She pointed out that he also voted against two bills guaranteeing nationwide access to contraceptives and in vitro fertilization, though Scott has since introduced his own pro-IVF legislation.
“This is the fraud that we have in the Senate,” she said.
Most polls have Mucarsel-Powell, who has made abortion rights one of her top issues, within striking distance of Scott ahead of the Nov. 5 election, a startling twist considering there are over one million more registered Florida Republicans than Democrats.
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, alongside progressive lobbyist Barbara DeVane and former Congressman Al Lawson
Scott, meanwhile, has publicly opposed a ballot initiative that would overturn Florida’s six-week ban and enshrine abortion access until viability in the state constitution. He’s joined by nearly all Florida Republican officials in his disapproval, which has been spearheaded by DeSantis and his administration…an administration that Mucarsel-Powell compared to Latin America’s “authoritarian regimes” after the Florida Governor hosted three statewide campaign events last week to combat the abortion referendum, called Amendment 4.
One was alongside a Catholic archbishop and the other two were in Catholic churches.
“I saw some prayers at those [conferences]. There was praying,” she said, cautioning against violating the separation of church and state because the country was “founded on the freedom to be able to worship the God that you choose.”
The administration’s efforts to quash the Amendment via Christianity is an attack on the “freedoms” enjoyed by both women and Jews, who believe that life begins at the first breath, she continued.
“So what they're doing is also trying to silence and put down the beliefs of other religions…The government should not be dictating what a woman can do with her health care,” Mucarsel-Powell added.
To pass, Amendment 4 would need 60% voter approval. In July, polls had it around 69% support; now it’s at 54%. Whether or not that’s due to increasingly effective campaigning by DeSantis and his allies, the swelling chance remains: Amendment 4 may not pass, and Florida’s six-week ban would be here to stay under the Republican-supermajority Legislature.
So if that happens, would Mucarsel-Powell, an abortion rights advocate, support any restrictions on the procedure?
“No one should tell a woman what we can or can't do with our bodies,” she responded, bringing up the story of a woman named Anya who miscarried 16 weeks into her pregnancy, was turned away by Broward County doctors, and lost nearly half the blood in her body. “So restrictions—absolutely not, because I trust women and doctors.”
With the election rapidly approaching, and with over 4.6 million ballots already being cast, Mucarsel-Powell also voiced her worries about the alleged loss of democracy if Republicans like Scott and former President Donald Trump win—a fear that conservatives claim to be the impetus for two assassination attempts on Trump’s life.
“I grew up under a military dictatorship. I know what can happen when you lose democracy from one day to the next and you see military tanks on the streets. I've seen it. And that will happen,” said Mucarsel-Powell, who grew up in war-torn Ecuador. “They're telling us that's going to happen. They're saying they're going to use retribution. They're saying that they're going to use the police against us if we don't follow the line.”
She stressed that Floridians have just eight days to protect everything from “reproductive freedom” to Medicare to Social Security, and that’s by voting out Rick Scott, she claimed.
“Rick Scott has evaded and slithered away from accountability for far too long,” the former Congresswoman said, referencing her new, jarring ad featuring Scott’s face superimposed onto a snake. “No one is going to fight harder for every single Floridian despite political affiliation than me.”
Early voting ends on Nov. 3 for most counties. Election Day is Nov. 5.
